


House Rules

by beckettemory



Category: Leverage
Genre: Found Families, Gen, Hardison rants about Joss Whedon, Hurt Eliot Spencer, Injury, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parker's bunny, Rules, Team Bonding, Team as Family, annoying nathan ford is my favorite pastime, autistic characters, case snapshots, its a bunch of oneshots but im splitting it into chapters so its easier for everyone, meltdowns, set throughout the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 12:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8578717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckettemory/pseuds/beckettemory
Summary: Cramming five very different people into a crew together requires some organization, they realize after a while. Someone will need to be in charge of paying the bills for headquarters, someone will need to be on the lookout for new clients, someone will need to stock the fridge and the first aid kits, and so many other little things none of them have had to worry about since they worked by themselves. Working together, as it turns out, also necessitates ground rules being laid out, and each of them have their own rules for working together peacefully. Whether they are always followed or not is an entirely separate matter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this set of oneshots for: guns, knives, injury, mentions of hospitals, further injuring of a dislocated shoulder, mention of medication, discussions of racism, sexism, cultural appropriation, and slut shaming, and references to deaths of fictional POC

_Nate’s rule #7: Unless we are actively working a job, my apartment is off limits on the weekend._

The sound of gunfire, strangely quiet, woke Nate early on a Sunday morning. _Very_ early, as it turned out. The clock on his bedside table read 5:19 as his eyes shot open and he rolled clumsily and quickly out of bed. He looked around frantically and went to the window, searching for snipers in the building across the street and pandemonium on the street below, but the street was dark and empty save one car driving slowly with its lights on.

So the violence was already in the building, he assumed. He grabbed a golf club from the golf bag in his closet quickly and squinted down the spiral stairs into his living room, but couldn’t see anything amiss. Brandishing the 9-iron cautiously in his pajama pants and nothing else, he slowly went down the stairs, only to lower the club tiredly when he saw two figures on his couch, staring at the wall of screens. One of the figures had shoulder-length brown hair, the other with short, curly black hair, and both were twitching and leaning this way and that, keeping up a steady, low chatter interspersed with quiet curses. The screens were filled with people in combat gear with guns, running around and leaping off tall buildings only to land gracefully, firing their huge guns the whole time.

Nate sighed and went down the rest of the stairs, setting down the club at the base of the stairs.

“Eliot. Hardison. What are you doing here?” he asked as he went around to the side of the couch and discovered the source of their movements: they each held a video game controller, and even as he spoke they continued jabbing at the buttons, their faces reacting to whatever the hell was happening on the screen.

“ _Black Ops_ ,” Eliot said shortly, wincing as an explosion sounded.

Nate waited for them to explain further, and when they didn’t, he crossed his arms. “It’s five in the morning. On a Sunday.”

“Game’s coming out in two days,” Hardison said. “We got an advance copy for my blog and gotta do some runs so I can write a-- _shit_ \--so I can write a review.”

Nate scrubbed a hand over his face. “Then why are you _here?”_ he asked tiredly, willing them to hear what he was getting at.

Eliot shrugged. “I don’t have a tv,” he said, his eyes never leaving the screen.

That was it. Nate stepped over to the game console, ignoring their cries of protest as he walked into their line of vision to the screens, and pressed his thumb to the power button.

He staunchly refused to give their yells and appeals--and for Eliot, mild threats--any attention as he stepped calmly back to the stairs and walked up.

“It’s Sunday,” he said firmly, just before he reached the top.

He lay awake for a few minutes, just long enough to be certain neither of them was plotting his demise, before he slipped back into a mildly hungover sleep.

 

* * *

 

_Sophie’s rule #26: No telling Sophie what to say during a grift except in an emergency._

“Of course, Mrs. Bloom, there is more than enough space for your… ah, lover,” Sophie said, purposefully hesitating. The prim older woman’s eyes widened for just a fraction of a second, indignation at her perceived prejudice, before Sophie’s promise caught up with her and she relaxed into a smile, though a bit warily.

“Excellent,” Mrs. Bloom replied. “Tamara will be pleased. She loves dancing.”

Sophie smiled politely and continued arranging the flowers for a centerpiece.

 _“Nate,”_ Hardison said quietly over the comms, _“Tamara Markland, 24. Mrs. Bloom’s personal assistant, officially.”_

 _“Unofficially?”_ Nate asked.

_“I gotta say it? I’m finding blackmail pics all over Decker’s hard drive of the two of ‘em together. See?”_

_“Hmm…”_ Nate hesitated and Sophie wished she had enough cover to switch off her comms, but Bloom was watching her every move. _“Tamara doesn’t look too happy. Alright, Sophie, I want you to tell her this--”_

Not even Sophie’s brilliant acting skills could keep her annoyance off the corners of her mouth. Her hands stilled on the stems of some flowers for a fraction of a second and she felt her jaw reflexively tighten just a touch. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Bloom take a tiny step towards her, but she was too distracted to pay any attention. She hurriedly nodded at the flowers as if satisfied with the centerpiece and turned away, taking a couple of steps across the slightly rocking deck of the moored yacht to the next table, where she stood with her back to the mark and reached for the centerpiece to hide her growing annoyance as Nate started to speak.

_“I want you to say that the party won’t get underway until your employer arrives--that’ll be me--and--”_

Sophie was too preoccupied with hiding her reaction and trying to tune out Nathan, and she completely missed Bloom stepping up to her table until she lay down a gleaming knife with an ornate handle. She froze.

 _“Hardison, what is that?”_ Nate asked worriedly over the comms.

 _“Eliot, she’s got a knife, get in there,”_ Hardison barked, and a moment later Eliot came pounding down the stairs from the bridge.

Sophie, still seething and completely unconcerned with the knife that lay untouched on the deep purple linen, was distantly dismayed that Eliot’s clean white ship captain getup would soon be ruined as Bloom’s bodyguards--just two of them, the fools--melted from the shadows.

Bloom and her bodyguards occupied (one whisking her away and the other engaging Eliot) gave Sophie the cover to slip away, flitting across the deck to the stairs down into the galley, where a secret hiding place had been secured just in case.

As soon as she was far enough from the grunts and smacks that she could be heard on the comms, she was griping.

“Really, Nate, where is the confidence in my abilities? I’ve told you, no, I’ve _begged_ you, _never_ interrupt me during the crucial moment of a grift! No, don’t you _dare_ interrupt me now--”

 

* * *

 

 _Eliot’s rule #10: Unless I’m unconscious or I tell you to, do_ not _touch me when I’m hurt._

Eliot groaned and clutched at his shoulder, his feet trudging automatically up the stairs to Nate’s apartment. He’d driven just fine with one hand, but the pain was starting to be distracting and he didn’t trust himself to drive the extra ten minutes to his own place like this.

He’d been doing recon by himself, the rest of the crew too wrapped up in their own parts of the job to give him backup, and he hadn’t anticipated the number of guards that would be on duty at three in the morning on a national holiday weekend. He hadn’t even stumbled into the guards with guns; he’d dropped blindly into what was evidently their break room. He’d felled all five of them before they could radio for help and had gotten out without arousing any suspicion, though without much useful information for the rest of the crew, and he hadn’t been confident in his ability to safely continue the recon without Hardison at the very least watching the surveillance video and guiding him through the building.

He wasn’t badly hurt, but his shoulder was dislocated and putting it back in was noisy, so he wanted to be out of the building and somewhere with pain meds when he did.

He’d been hurt worse before. Lots worse. But he was already tired and overworked and cranky and he kind of just wanted to put his shoulder back in, swallow down some pain pills, and crash on Nate’s couch for a few hours until they needed him again. So he allowed himself to groan and feel sorry for himself.

As he unlocked Nate’s door he heard Nate talking hurriedly through the door, and a moment later as he opened it he heard the sounds of footsteps pacing quickly and the fast _click-click_ of Hardison typing. He shut the door behind him slowly, trying to avoid moving his hurt shoulder. He could _feel_ it sitting out of place, and if he didn’t know any better he’d think his whole arm would fall off if he jostled it too much.

Nate’s pacing slowed as Eliot did a slow once-over of the loft out of habit. Parker and Sophie were gone, Nate was pacing back and forth just behind the long desk in the middle of the room, and Hardison’s fingers flying across his keyboard didn’t so much as pause as he looked up at the intruder.

“You’re back soon,” Nate observed. “What’s up?”

Eliot moved slowly to sit carefully on the edge of the dining table. “Too many guards,” he grunted, groaning slightly as he carefully manipulated his hurt right arm with his left hand. The muscles strained and he winced. “Not safe to go in blind,” he continued, panting a little.

Hardison’s hands stilled and Nate stopped in his tracks.

“You got it, Sophie?” Nate asked, frowning in concern at Eliot. His eyes flicked away for just a moment as he listened. “Yeah, stay on him. Parker, you good?” He nodded minutely and then his eyes refocused on Eliot.

Hardison put down his keyboard and hurried over.

“What happened?” Nate asked.

Eliot paused in his slow stretch and carefully lowered his hurt arm to a neutral position with a wince.

“Dropped into the guards’ break room. Took down all five of ‘em in there. Dislocated my shoulder. Got out,” he said shortly.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Nate asked warily, and Eliot growled.

“No.”

Hardison stepped close. “Let me help, man, I dislocated my shoulder once. It was a bitch to put back myself.”

Eliot leaned away from his reaching hands, grimacing as it jostled his arm. “You don’t know what you’re doin’, man, don’t _touch_ me,” he said.

“No, I do, I do,” Hardison insisted, and Eliot clenched his jaw tight as Hardison took his bicep between both his hands firmly.

“Wait, back up,” Eliot said. When Hardison let go he stood up and pulled out a chair, then settled himself down in it.

“Good?” Hardison asked. Nate watched warily, hands shoved in his pockets, as Hardison took Eliot’s arm again, this time propping his elbow with one hand.

“Get it over with,” Eliot growled, and almost before he was finished speaking Hardison jerked his arm up.

Eliot’s muscles screamed and he almost did. There was no pop. There was _supposed_ to be a pop.

“Oh, shit, sorry. Let’s try that again,” Hardison said, sounding truly remorseful, and before Eliot could find his voice to tell him to stop he jerked Eliot’s arm again, this time backwards.

This time Eliot did let out a shout and he saw stars. Again, there was no pop.

“Hardison--” Nate said, reaching out a hand to halt him.

“No, no, I think I got it this time,” Hardison said.

 _“Don’t,”_ Eliot cried, his voice coming out strangled as he put up his free hand to shove ineffectually at Hardison. _“God,_ let me go,” he spat.

Hardison released him all at once and Eliot’s arm dropped to his side, prompting a very unmanly shriek.

“What the _hell is your problem, Hardison,”_ Eliot howled.

“Hardison, you should maybe go sit over there,” Nate suggested, sounding like it wasn’t actually a suggestion.

When Hardison moved away, apologizing, as Eliot fought to breathe, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, Nate moved a little closer. Eliot leaned away, picturing Nate grabbing him and trying to finish what Hardison started, but Nate just knelt down nearby.

“So, should we go to the hospital now?” he asked casually.

Eliot growled, squeezing his eyes shut and holding his shoulder still with his good hand.

“Fine,” he gritted out.

 

* * *

 

_Hardison’s rule #18: Joss Whedon’s name is not to be uttered in my presence without consequences and his works are off limits._

“We could watch _Galaxy Quest,”_ Nate said as he plopped onto the couch.

Hardison hummed and shook his head. “Me and Parker watched it last week.”

“I didn’t like it,” Parker said, wrinkling her nose.

 _“Titanic,”_ Sophie suggested with shining eyes as she leaned forward in her seat and grabbed a handful of popcorn.

Eliot scoffed. “Hated that movie. Inaccurate as hell,” he said.

Parker hummed. “The Heart of the Ocean _obviously_ wasn’t a real blue diamond.”

“Fine, then,” Sophie said, leaning back in her chair grumpily.

 _“Serenity?”_ Nate asked, flicking through available titles on the tv, and Parker and Eliot tensed visibly. “What?”

Hardison stiffened and turned to look at him slowly, glaring what he hoped were daggers at him.

“What?” Nate asked again, chuckling nervously.

“You know _Serenity_ was written by You-Know-Who, don’t you?” Hardison asked.

Nate raised an eyebrow cockily. “Voldemort?” he asked, seeming to find himself hilarious.

Hardison narrowed his eyes.

Parker turned around where she leaned against the front of the couch sitting on the floor and looked up at Nate sitting behind her. “Joss Whedon,” she whispered, her eyes flicking back to Hardison to see if he’d get upset with her for saying his name.

“Oh. Did he-did he write _Serenity?_ I didn’t know,” Nate said with a little shrug. Hardison just continued to glare at him.

“He did. Sort of a fix-it after _Firefly_ was cancelled,” Hardison informed him, and Nate’s eyebrows raised.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been meaning to watch that. You liked it, didn’t you?”

Eliot winced and closed his eyes.

Hardison stood, beginning to pace slowly in front of the screen. “No. I _didn’t_ like _Firefly._ And I do not like Joss Whedon.” 

“Well, why don’t you like him? Isn’t he some sort of geeky staple?” Sophie asked, eating a piece of popcorn and watching Hardison with detachedly curious eyes as she fluttered her fingers vaguely at him.

Eliot groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face.

Hardison’s blood boiled as he began mentally compiling his ever growing list of complaints against Joss Whedon.

“Bad idea, Sophie, now we won’t even get to _watch_ a--”

“Joss Whedon,” Hardison began, steepling his hands in front of him as he paced, “is a mediocre writer who believes himself to be the epitome of feminism.”

“Oh boy,” Nate sighed.

“Yes, boy,” Hardison agreed. “Joss Whedon believes that there is one way for a female character to be strong: she must be skinny, physically strong, emotionally resilient, broken, supernaturally special, maybe even ‘chosen’, white, attractive but not slutty, and she’s gotta fight in a revealing costume with her hair swingin’ all free and in her face.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad,” Nate said with a shrug, and Hardison rounded on him.

“For one character, maybe, but in the multiple series and movies he’s written for there have also been further factors. One, there are never more than one or two ‘strong’ female characters, and two, they are basically all carbon copies. I mean, you could switch around Buffy and River Tam and their shows would basically stay the same,” Hardison said, talking with his hands.

Nate looked like he was about to talk again and Hardison cut him off.

“Next! Joss Whedon is a pasty lookin’ white dude who thinks Asian stuff is real cool and puts it in all his shows. Now that would be all well and good, ‘cept for the fact that there are never any Asian _characters_ in his shows.”

He saw Parker sigh minutely and shift to get comfortable, and Eliot saw her and followed suit.

“Three! Joss Whedon likes to kill off characters of color so his white protags can be more important--”

 

* * *

 

 _Parker’s rule #193a:_ _No pears._

Parker shook her head to clear some of the fuzz from inside her brain as she paused in getting dressed for the day. Her fingertips tapped a nice little rhythm on the edge of her suitcase as she pursed her lips to decide what to wear. _Black,_ Nate would have said, but that left so many options open, especially considering 72% of her wardrobe was black, and 84% of the clothes she’d brought for this particular con.

Eventually she settled on a long sleeved black shirt that fit close to her skin and featured a lace overlay on the shoulders in a shade of black juuuuust darker than the base shade, worn with black skinny jeans (with the metal brads popped off, of course; they always found a way to clink against the echoey metal inside air ducts and that just wouldn’t do). As for shoes, she decided to decide on them later, just before they left.

“Parker!” Eliot called from the small kitchenette of the suite she was sharing with Eliot and Hardison. “Come on!”

She made a face as she tugged on some socks and caught her own reflection in the mirror.

She cocked her head, watching sleepily as her reflection did the same, and would have kept staring at the mirror if Eliot hadn’t called her name again.

She left the small bedroom and trailed a hand along the wall, feeling the texture of the wallpaper underneath her fingertips, until she made it to the kitchenette and sat down at the bar next to Hardison, who was eating a piece of toast with his eyes closed. Eliot was watching him with some kind of weird expression on his face, and as Parker sat down he slid a plate towards her.

Scrambled eggs with bacon bits cooked in, a peeled and sliced apple, and a bowl of cereal (the good kind, with marshmallows) balanced on the edge of the plate. A moment later a cup of coffee joined the plate, followed by a fork and spoon being slid fast across the counter. She caught the utensils and hummed, trying to decide what to eat first.

Cereal. It would get soggy.

When the last of the marshmallows had been chased and caught, she speared a piece of apple and took a bite.

It was simultaneously gritty and mushy and she stopped chewing after just a couple of seconds. The flavor was off, too.

It was a _pear._ Not an apple.

She couldn’t help but lock eyes with Eliot as she leaned over her plate and let the bite of fruit fall out of her mouth back onto her plate.

“What the--what’s your _problem, Parker?”_ he cried as he jerked away, having leaned his elbows on the counter nearby to eat his own breakfast.

She pushed the whole plate towards him, her face twisting into a grimace.

“You gave me a _pear,”_ she hissed.

Eliot shrugged, shaking his head like he had no idea what he’d done wrong. Ugh.

“Yeah? So? You need to eat more fruit, Park,” he said, pushing the plate towards her.

She shoved it back harder than really necessary, and only Eliot’s quick reflexes kept it from falling off the counter. “Parker’s rule number 193a,” she said, waiting for him to realize his mistake.

He just looked confused and pissed off, and Parker made a frustrated noise.

“You don’t remember my rules?” she asked.

“There’s over 200 of them, Parker,” Hardison said, blinking blearily as he reached for his cup of tea. “No one could remember all of them.”

Parker glowered at both of them. “Rule number 193a is ‘no pears’. None. Ever.”

“It’s just a pear,” Eliot said, shoving the plate towards her. “You don’t like it, you don’t gotta eat it, god.”

Parker sat back down and angrily rotated the plate so the pear slices were on the far side, then used her spoon to push the slices off the plate entirely.

“Do you really gotta--shit, Parker, really?” Eliot groaned, wrinkling his nose as the last slice plopped onto the counter.

“No pears.”

“What’s number 193b?” Hardison asked, slowly beginning to join the living.

Parker grumpily shoved a bite of scrambled eggs into her mouth and fought to keep her anger intact. Eliot made good scrambled eggs, and it was distracting.

“No pear-flavored anything,” she said with her mouth full.

“Is that… a problem you run into often?” Hardison asked, blinking slowly at her.

She scowled and shoved another bite of egg into her mouth. “You’d be surprised.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this batch of oneshots for: references to sexual activity, alcohol, discussions of violence and death, mentions of guns, references to burn injuries, mention of torture, violence, knives, joint trauma, vague antisemitism, head injury, ableism, and ABA practices

_Nate’s rule #10: Don’t snoop around in my bedroom._

Hardison waited until the door to the apartment was completely closed behind Nate before he shoved off the sofa and set his keyboard aside. He had his foot on the bottom stair up into the second floor of the loft when Eliot came out of the storage room to the far side of the briefing area.

Eliot paused, his brow crinkling. “What’re you up to?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nate’s hidin’ something,” Hardison said, stopping a couple steps up. He pointed above his head. “Last place I haven’t checked.”

Eliot rolled his eyes. “Probably just some keepsakes or somethin’. Leave it alone,” he said, crossing to the kitchen and grabbing an apple from the counter.

Hardison shook his head and continued up the stairs. “Last time he was hidin’ something he went to prison, El, and none of us were prepared for it. I’ll put everything back.”

He heard a huff from the base of the stairs as he stepped onto the landing and looked around. He’d been in Nate’s bedroom before, usually to grab first aid supplies from the bathroom or wake up a hungover Nate in time for a client meeting, but despite his status as one of the best thieves in the world, he’d never actually snooped through Nate’s stuff. His physical stuff, anyway. Nate’s computer was an open book.

The space was well furnished and nicely decorated, which meant Nate had probably bought the loft already furnished. None of the artwork was particularly noteworthy, probably meaning it wasn’t worth anything. It didn’t look like anything except the books in the shelf, the linens on the bed, and the decanter on the dresser had been put there by Nate himself, and that was so, so sad. He’d need to speak to Nate about interior design.

Nothing immediately caught his eye as being secretive, so he started with the closet. Unlike the bedroom, which was neat and tidy, the closet was a disaster area. Suits hung haphazard and mismatched on both sides of the walk-in closet, interspersed with shirts and pants and jackets. There was no rhyme or reason to how everything was displayed, and it physically pained Hardison. Dirty clothes littered the floor around an overflowing laundry hamper, and shoes had evidently been kicked off and allowed to stay where they landed. There was a half-packed duffel on the floor and it had apparently been left for some time, as it was partially buried under a winter coat. It was April.

Hardison rummaged through the debris for secrets but came up with only a profound disgust for how Nate lived and a determination to secretly hire a cleaning service. He closed the closet door carefully and moved on to the dresser.

The insides of the drawers were as much of a mess as the closet, except the bottom two drawers, which held a number of small boxes and a kid’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles folder. Hardison was pretty sure what was in the folder, so he left it alone. He knew about that particular secret of Nate’s.

In the boxes he found some knick-knacks: a tiny matte blue porcelain elephant with white lacy designs, a tarnished letter opener, a handful of rings that needed good cleanings, a pen inlaid with what looked like malachite, a box of newspaper clippings about Jimmy Ford, and one which Hardison quickly put away, his ears burning. It held an engagement ring. A nice one, and new. Expensive. Hardison grinned, thinking that Sophie was going to flip her shit.

Nothing else was of interest in the dresser, so he moved to the bookshelf, testing each book to see if it was hollow or had something behind it. Nothing, and none of the books were of any interest to him. Mostly books about boats and history. A couple true crime novels. An art history textbook. Some photography collections. Boring.

All that was left were the two nightstands and under the bed, and Hardison had purposefully saved those for last. They were bound to be the most interesting.

“He has that rule for a reason,” Eliot called up the stairs, and Hardison jumped with his hand on the drawer pull for one nightstand. “Man’s gotta have his secrets.”

“Yeah? You got secrets?” Hardison asked as he slid open the drawer.

“Yeah,” Eliot confirmed. “You ain’t ever gonna know ‘em.”

Hardison smirked. “You sure you don’t wanna know what he’s got in his bedside drawer?”

Eliot scoffed and then Hardison heard his footsteps moving away.

There wasn’t anything particularly juicy in this drawer. Chapstick, tissues, earplugs, and whatnot. The other nightstand, closer to the window, was a different story.

He heard the front door open and froze. Or, rather, he froze when he saw what Nate kept in the drawer, and then the door opened and he froze harder. Not harder--um. Froze stiffe-- _no!_

“Oh, hey Nate,” Eliot said conversationally, a little louder than necessary, and Hardison unfroze. He shuffled ineffectually, panicking, and closed the drawer as quietly as he could. He made for the bathroom to act like he’d been getting a bandaid when he heard Parker’s voice.

“What? Nate wasn’t behind me,” she said. She paused. “Am I dead? Eliot? Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I can hear you, Parke--get off me!” Eliot said irritably. “Try’na scare Hardison. He’s snooping in Nate’s stuff.”

Hardison scowled and went to the top of the staircase. “Fuck you, man.”

Parker came to the foot of the stairs and looked up. “Did you find his sex toys?” she asked with a little smirk.

Hardison made a face automatically, remembering the contents of the bedside drawer. “I did.”

Parker’s eyes shone mischievously. “Nate’s kinky.”

Hardison nodded, trying to keep his stomach’s contents where they were. “He really is.”

“Have you seen what’s under his bed?” Parker asked excitedly.

Hardison shook his head worriedly, and Parker giggled and started up the stairs.

“You have to see this,” she said, pushing past him at the top of the stairs. “Eliot, keep a lookout.”

 

* * *

 

_Sophie’s rule #14: Wednesday evenings are for group suppers._

Sophie pursed her lips and studied the two bottles of wine she held. Eliot was making fish so it would need to be a white. But which of these two would be better?

She picked a 2005 Chablis and studied the label as she made her way to the table.

“I’m just sayin’, if Eliot took out the guards in transport--” Hardison was saying, jabbing his fingertips into a cloth napkin as he leaned over the edge of the table, bracing himself with his other hand right where Sophie was going to put down the bottle of wine.

“Then the guards hearing it over their own comms would immediately kill me and Sophie,” Nate interrupted.

“Man, I can take out their comms, who you think you’re talkin’ to?” Hardison said, obligingly shifting a little so Sophie could put down the bottle.

“I can’t take down five armed guards in a moving armored car,” Eliot called from the kitchen, turning away from the stove with a pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. “In a still car, maybe. If they weren’t armed, maybe. But one of ‘em would get to their guns faster than I could disarm him and lose their balance and the bullets would ricochet. Metal walls, Hardison.”

Nate hummed. “That’s true. So a transport takedown is out.”

“What about an ambush that separates Trammel from the guards _after_ we get to the warehouse?” Parker piped up from where she sat on the counter despite Eliot’s numerous attempts to shoo her out of the kitchen.

“Too risky unless we had another hitter,” Sophie said, and then put her foot down. “Now, you know the rules. No shop talk during Wednesday supper.”

Hardison groaned and dropped his chin to his chest.

“It’s not time yet,” Parker said, leaning over and eyeing Eliot’s actions. “He’s still cooking and the salads haven’t been plated.”

“You haven’t done anything,” Eliot said, pointing with his spatula. “Plate the salad yourself.”

“Nooo, you make it look so pretty,” Parker whined.

“Then get the asparagus out of the oven,” Eliot ordered. Parker made a face and got down with a little huff. She opened the oven and reached in and Eliot glanced over. _“Use a frickin’ pot holder, Parker, Jesus!”_ he snapped, dragging her back by the waistband.

Nate let out a little chuckle and Sophie looked at him incredulously. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said sarcastically. At least he had the decency to look sheepish. “Parker gets second degree burns on her hands and you laugh about it. Honestly,” she muttered as she left the room to change out of the pantsuit she still wore.

“She ain’t hurt,” Eliot called after her.

Sophie took her time changing into a pair of comfortable jeans and a soft sweater in Nate’s bedroom, pausing to adjust her hair in the mirror in the bathroom. She wasn’t _living_ there, per se, but a large portion of her wardrobe had ended up there in the previous few months, and miraculously it all got washed and put away faster and neater than Nate’s own clothes.

When she returned to the dining table Eliot was just finishing plating the salads and the main courses, and Hardison was bringing the plates to the table as he finished them. Nate was pouring the wine, and Parker was rooting around in the fridge. She came up empty handed and pouted as she joined Nate and Sophie at the table as the boys finished and carried the last of the plates over.

“This looks good, Eliot,” Nate said as a plate of food was placed in front of him.

“Pan seared orange roughy and sauteed asparagus with a beurre blanc, and caesar salad from a bag because it was Hardison’s turn to make salads,” Eliot explained, and Hardison threw a crouton at him when he smirked through the last part of the sentence.

“What about tear gas?” Parker asked, brightening as she got the idea.

Nate took a sip of wine with his eyebrows furrowed. “That could work. We’d need to get gas masks--”

Sophie cut him off by clearing her throat, pointedly spearing a piece of lettuce on her fork and locking eyes with him calmly as she brought the fork to her mouth.

“Right,” he said, dropping it.

There was an awkward silence as the others took a minute to switch gears from thinking about the job to thinking about things outside of work.

Hardison hummed thoughtfully. “If we’re done by Saturday, I found a way into that Zero G company’s servers and could get us all tickets on a private flight.”

Parker furrowed her brow. “Zero G?”

Hardison put down his fork and demonstrated with his hands. “It’s basically a plane with no seats in it and it goes up and down like this, like thirty-some times, and at the top of each arc it gives you half a minute of zero-gravity and you get to float around like you in space.” He grinned excitedly.

“Oooh,” Parker said, her eyes lighting up. “That sounds so cool. Nate, can we?”

Nate grinned into his wine, which was being depleted much faster than his food. Come to think of it, he had barely touched his food. “If we’re done with the job,” he said.

“Why do we have to finish it like planned?” Parker asked. “Why can’t we just kill him and steal the money back?”

Hardison choked, and Eliot slapped him on the back until he held up his hands to indicate he was all better.

Sophie laughed. “We can’t just kill him, Parker,” she said. “We don’t know where the money _is_.”

Parker nudged Eliot. “Eliot could torture it out of him. It’d be easy, right? And then we could go on the zero-g thing.”

Eliot launched into the logistics of that, with Nate and Hardison only too happy to get back into their earlier discussion, and Parker chiming in every once in a while. Sophie sighed and slumped a little in her chair, pushing at the asparagus on her plate, wishing that just once they’d go an entire meal without talking about the job.

 

* * *

 

_Eliot’s rule #2: I won’t fight in a house of worship._

Eliot grunted as he blocked the thug’s slash with a switchblade, and cracked the arm he held over his knee, causing the bald man to shriek in pain and drop the knife as his elbow was hyperextended. Eliot stomped his foot over the knife to keep his buddies from getting at it. The now unarmed man jerked his arm back and disengaged, dashing out the door clutching his elbow.

Eliot cursed and swiftly spun to kick one of the advancing reinforcements in the jaw. He dodged the right hook of the other man and dropped to a crouch to draw the knife concealed in his boot and grab the switchblade from under his foot. He flicked the switchblade, the lighter of the two knives, at the man he’d kicked in the jaw and it hit its mark, sinking a couple inches deep in his abdomen. The man doubled over and dropped to his knees, and Eliot took advantage of the remaining attacker’s distraction to rise to his full height.

He landed a swift punch to the man’s solar plexus and dropped an elbow on the back of his head as he crumpled, sending him even faster to the floor. His good knife wasn’t even necessary, then. He quickly sheathed it back into his boot and ran for the door. He had only lost maybe fifteen seconds since the first guy darted out, and he was unhurt. He’d be able to catch up quickly.

As he left the warehouse he looked over his shoulder to catch any details that would enable Parker and Hardison to come in behind him and finish up with the other assailants. The warehouse looked like all the others on this row, except for a broken lamp above the loading door and some red graffiti on the regular sized door.

“Hardison,” he said as he took off running in earnest, keeping his sentences short to preserve his breath. “Two down. Third running. Left the first two in the warehouse. Broken lamp. Red graffiti.”

 _“Got it. Go get ‘im,”_ Hardison said over the comms.

The first guy, the one with the hurt elbow, wasn’t moving very quickly, and soon Eliot caught almost up to him. He rounded a corner out of sight, and a couple of seconds later Eliot rounded the corner just in time to see him dart inside the side door of a building. Eliot crossed the street and picked up speed, but slowed nearly to a stop when he saw a Magen David on the glass of the door. He cursed under his breath.

 _“What is it?”_ Nate asked over the comms, his voice hushed.

“He went in the synagogue,” Eliot growled as he looked up and down the street, scanning for somewhere the fugitive could come out that may be connected to the synagogue but not actually part of it.

 _“So? Go get him,”_ Hardison said.

“I ain’t fighting in a synagogue, Hardison,” Eliot snarled.

 _“Oh, my g--fine, okay. I’m pulling up blueprints,”_ Hardison said exasperatedly.

 _“Follow him, at least. Don’t lose track of him,”_ Nate said. _“We can’t let him sneak off a call to Franks.”_

Eliot cursed under his breath again and steeled himself before going in the door with the Magen David. Luckily, it opened into a hallway with what looked like classrooms on both sides, rather than anywhere near the sanctuary. He paused and listened hard, then heard running footsteps farther down the hall. He set off at a brisk jog, trying to move quietly enough to still hear the footsteps. Halfway down the hall it branched off into another hallway running perpendicular, and the bald man was nearing the end of it. Eliot ran after him in earnest and slipped through the door at the end of the hall just after he did.

The man ran a dozen yards into the big, open room and spun to face Eliot, pulling his good arm up to be at the ready and clutching his hurt arm close to his chest. Eliot took two long strides towards him and then noticed the balconies running along three sides of the room and the rows of pews with a central aisle. He bit back a curse and turned slightly until he saw the bimah at the head of the room, confirming his fears. He turned back to the bald man.

“Listen, man, I’m gonna fight you, but not in here,” he said, lowering his hands and standing casually. “It’s just disrespectful.”

The man frowned, a little taken aback. “It is just temple,” he said in a thick Russian accent. “Jews won’t mind.”

Eliot growled. “They do, and I do. So let’s take this outside, huh?” he said, starting towards the guy.

The man backed down the aisle a few steps at a time whenever Eliot got too close, and Eliot just kept walking towards him to drive him back. They were nearly to the doors at the back of the sanctuary when he lunged at Eliot.

He wasn’t very well balanced, and clearly not an ambidextrous fighter, because his weak left hook was easily blocked, and Eliot grabbed his hurt elbow with his free hand and muscled him, groaning all high-pitched, out the door and into the sunlight. It was midmorning on a Tuesday, so the area wasn’t particularly populated, and Eliot dragged him around the corner into an alley and let him go.

“Alright, much better,” he said, dusting off his hands and then squaring up and clenching his fists.

The bald man took a moment to recover, breathing hard, his face pale, before squaring up as well. Eliot admired his persistence and accordingly let him make the first move.

He attempted a spinning kick, which Eliot caught easily and used the momentum and leverage to slam him bodily to the pavement. He heard a sharp _thunk_ as the man’s head hit the concrete, and he was out cold. Eliot let him go and caught his breath.

“He’s out,” he said. “Didn’t have to throw a single punch in the temple,” he said proudly and a bit pointedly.

 _“I’ll get you a medal,”_ Hardison said flatly.

 

* * *

 

_Hardison’s rule #4: Nana is always right._

“Eliot, hon, could you do me a favor?” Nana’s bright, clear voice rang out through her yellow and green kitchen. She stood with her back to the rest of them, elbows deep in biscuit dough.

“Of course, Nana,” Eliot said, putting down the potato peeler and half-peeled potato at once and wiping his hands.

She turned slightly to beam at him, the soft wrinkles in her cheeks deepening and her sharp brown eyes squinting a little with her smile. “Haul that turkey out of the oven. Careful, now, it’s gon be heavy,” she warned, and pointed with a dough-covered finger to a stack of pot holders within easy reach of the oven.

“Yes, ma’am,” Eliot said.

“You’re a good kid, Eliot,” Nana said, turning back to the biscuits. “So polite.”

“My mama raised me to respect my elders,” Eliot said with a little grin as he pulled the turkey out.

“Careful, son, I ain’t that old,” she warned with a little laugh. “Alec!” she called.

“Yes, Nana?” Hardison answered from the sink, where he was washing more potatoes for Eliot.

“There you are. I just remembered I forgot to get the tablecloth from the hall closet. Could you get it?” she asked.

Hardison turned off the faucet and dried his hands off. “Sure thing.”

“The gold one!” Nana called as he left.

It had been a couple of years since he’d been in Nana’s house, having flown her and the kids living with her at the time out to Boston for major holidays and her birthday, but he still remembered exactly where everything was.

He walked past Parker, who was dutifully watching over Tali and Federico as they colored at the coffee table. A small spat broke out over a crayon and Parker snapped the crayon in half, then handed half to each kid.

As Hardison passed the living room, the front door opened and in came Sophie and Nate, each with two brown paper grocery bags.

“We’re back!” Sophie called.

“Bring it on in here,” Nana responded from the kitchen.

When Hardison returned from the hall with the tablecloth, he walked into one of Nana’s signature arguments, this time with Sophie, who was undoubtedly unfamiliar with them.

“I just thought we’d spice it up a bit, you know, fresh cranberry sauce and maybe some cranberries in the stuffing--” she was saying, gesturing with a vacuum-sealed bag of fresh berries.

Nana, her hands miraculously clean of biscuit dough, put her hands on her hips, and Hardison made a face, locked eyes with Eliot, and edged out of the kitchen. Eliot, eyes wide and monitoring the situation nervously, followed Hardison.

“We use canned cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving in this house,” Nana said. “Have ever since I was a little girl.”

“This ain’t gonna end well for Sophie,” Hardison whispered once he and Eliot were safely on the other side of the arch into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong with putting cranberries in the stuffing, then?” Sophie asked, and Hardison sucked in a breath.

“Young lady,” Nana began, and Hardison winced. “My recipe for stuffing was given to me by my mother, who got it from _her_ mother. This stuffing recipe has been made for Thanksgiving for well on eighty years by now.”

Sophie withered a little. “Oh, I--”

Nana softened some. “‘Course, you had no way of knowin’ that, and you’re English, so I ‘spect you know a little somethin’ about old family recipes,” she said, dropping her hands from her hips and smiling a little, and Hardison knew she knew she had won.

Sophie laughed nervously. “Not really. My family wasn’t close.”

Nana shook her head and turned back to the pile of dough just waiting to be rolled out on the countertop. “That’s too bad. ‘Least now you got this family,” she said, well and truly done with the argument. That was her style--swoop in, dismantle the argument, deliver a death blow, retreat. All in two minutes or less. The longest argument Hardison had ever had with her had lasted all of ten minutes, when she’d found out he was paying for her hip surgery by bankrolling the government of Sweden. At least she never held her victories over your head, and she always turned out to be right.

He and Eliot cautiously walked back into the kitchen, Eliot going right back to peeling potatoes, and Hardison taking his time putting the tablecloth on the long table and adjusting it so it was straight.

“Oh, Alec, that looks good, baby,” Nana called, having looked over her shoulder as she started cutting biscuits. “Could you and Nathan set the table?”

“Yes ma’am,” Nate said. He had shrunk back during the argument, unobtrusively finishing stowing the groceries and sitting back to wait it out. Nana beamed at him.

Four hours later, the nine of them (Nate, Sophie, Parker, Eliot, Hardison, Nana, six-year-old Tali, eight-year-old Federico, and sixteen-year-old Hannah) sat down for dinner, the table laden with steaming dishes. Eliot had dutifully stepped back from his gourmet sensibilities and used all of Nana’s recipes, except where she gave him free reign over the sprouts and carrots.

Nana led a prayer, and Parker, Sophie, and Hardison stared awkwardly at each other across the table as everyone else bowed their heads, each person holding hands with the people on either side. As soon as the chorus of ‘amen’s rang out, pandemonium broke loose as they all scrambled for their favorite dishes.

A few minutes later everyone was getting settled down to eat, and Sophie suddenly put down her fork and covered her face with her hand.

Nana, sitting next to her, also put down her utensils and put a hand on her shoulder. “Child, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“The stuffing is amazing,” Sophie groaned. “I’m so sorry, Nana.”

Nana’s face broke out in a huge grin and she clapped her hands together, beginning to laugh uproariously.

“Nana’s always right, Soph,” Hardison reminded her from the other side of the table.

Sophie nodded, blushing, smiling embarrassedly. “I’ll have to remember that.”

 

* * *

 

_Parker’s rule #4: No quiet hands._

Parker’s head was spinning, or, no, it wasn’t her head spinning, it was her thoughts. Nothing was making sense and everything her team was saying was taking three times longer than usual to process and by the time she realized Sophie had asked her a question it had been too long of a pause and Sophie had moved on.

Hardison said something at her, and she stared blankly at him until her mind caught up and she realized he’d asked her if she needed a break.

She hummed and nodded rapidly; words were too far away right now. Her hands fluttered on her knees, her fingertips tapping, and her heels bounced against the floor. It was only a matter of time before she went fully into a meltdown, and then she’d be out of commission for the rest of the day, and maybe tomorrow, too.

Nate cleared his throat as she nodded. “No, there’s no time for breaks,” he said, glancing down at Parker’s hands and then back up at the wall of screens. “We need to get in tonight.”

He smelled like alcohol and it burned Parker’s nose. She shifted in her chair and felt her face doing something but didn’t have the clarity of mind to figure out what.

“She ain’t gonna be helpful tonight if she doesn’t get a break,” Eliot said, studying her.

That’s right. Eliot was autistic, too. And Hardison. They would vouch for her, and then she’d scramble up into the air conditioning vents above the offices with a blanket wrapped tight around her shoulders and some noise-cancelling headphones and something to chew on until all was right with the world and she could think again.

Tapping her fingertips against her knees wasn’t cutting it anymore. She looked down at the briefing room table and saw a pen sitting in the middle of the table. Her hand darted out to take it and she began rapidly smacking the pen against her open palm. It made a nice sound, sharp but not too loud, and the slight sting across her palm with each impact helped to stifle the electric buzzing across her shoulders.

“Parker,” Nate said, and she looked in his direction. He made eye contact and she looked away quickly, a frustrated humming sound leaving her automatically as she looked towards Eliot, frowning. She started rocking in her chair and her tapping sped up, trying to rid herself of the sharp pain that had shot through her at the eye contact.

She felt a warm and calloused hand cover her own hands, pressing them firmly to the tabletop and stilling her pen smacking. Her head whipped around and she saw that it was Nate’s hand covering hers and he had a look she’d seen countless times in her life: eyes tight with something akin to concern, mouth pressed into a line, and she knew instinctively what his next words would be. All this processing took a split second as she wrenched her hands free.

“No!” Parker shrieked, and as a reflex she dropped the pen, reached up, and slapped Nate hard across the face.

Horror dawned over her as she realized what she had done, and in almost no time she had shoved her chair back and darted out of the room, making for her safe exit through a hatch in the ceiling of her personal office, onto the roof of the office building overlooking Los Angeles, and then off the roof with the harness and rappelling system she always left concealed in a corner of the roof.

She was standing on top of her desk, about to shove aside the ceiling panel that would give her access to the secret hatch, when Eliot and Hardison appeared in the doorway.

“Parker, hey,” Hardison said, his voice quiet but urgent, and Parker paused, shuffling from foot to foot frantically.

“He ain’t gonna do it again,” Eliot promised.

“He didn’t know,” Hardison said.

Eliot took a step into the office and Parker edged back. “Look, we get you need a break and you’re gonna get one. But if you try to go off the roof like this you’re just gonna get hurt.”

A whimper escaped her and she clapped a hand over her mouth as tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Her other hand flapped faintly at her side.

“We can get you your blanket and anything else you need and then we can leave you alone for a bit,” Hardison said. “We just want you safe, Parker.”

“No one’s gonna ‘quiet hands’ you ever again,” Eliot promised, and Parker winced and stilled unconsciously as he said the words. “Shit,” Eliot breathed. “I’m sorry, you can stim all you want, Park, it’s alright.”

Unable to stay still too long for fear she would somehow die from the current running through her veins, she started flapping both her hands.

Eliot took another step closer. “Can I help you down off the desk?”

Parker debated, and nodded. She stepped close to the edge shakily, and Eliot reached up and grabbed her firmly around the waist and lifted her down. She leaned into the pseudo-embrace when her feet hit the ground and Eliot wrapped his arms around her shoulders in a real embrace, tight. She sighed, continuing to flap with her hands at her sides, and leaned her head heavily against Eliot’s shoulder.

Hardison joined them and stood behind her, then hugged her from behind, and she could hear Eliot’s heartbeat and feel both of them breathing and the pressure of the two of them sandwiching her in was amazing.

“Sophie’s chewing out Nate,” Hardison said after a minute or two, not budging, and Parker could feel his words rumbling through his chest.

“That was a good slap,” Eliot commented. “I can teach you some stuff that’ll do more damage if you want.”

She just squeezed her eyes shut and focused on her breathing and the weight of her two boys holding her together.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this batch of oneshots for: guns, violence, gunshot wounds, blood, mentions of hospitals, and references to child abuse

_Nate’s rule #1: Don’t bring up a problem unless you have a solution._

“Two large black coffees, one with two sugars, and a cappuccino, extra foam, please,” Nate said, then looked at Eliot expectantly.

Eliot nodded and dug around in his pockets for a moment, then scowled.

“Lose your wallet?” Nate asked.

Eliot grumbled, bent down, and fumbled with something at his ankle for a moment, then came up with a slim zippered bag. He opened it and pulled out a wad of cash, then handed the cashier a $10 bill.

“You keep an extra wallet in your boot?” Nate asked incredulously.

Eliot shrugged and pocketed the change, then put the wallet back in his boot. “You’re around Parker enough, you start adapting,” he said.

Nate chuckled. It was true. Nearly everything of value in his apartment had been pilfered by her at least once and then returned. He didn’t even bother to hide or lock up anything anymore, aside from his front door, because locks and security systems meant nothing to his team.

They rejoined Sophie at their usual table when the barista handed over their coffees, and Eliot pulled a book out of the inside pocket of his jacket. It was small and leather-bound, with a leather strap wrapped around it to hold it shut.

Nate nodded towards the book. “What’s that?”

Eliot undid the straps, flipped the book open, and handed it over. “Not sure. Found it on one of Edom’s men. Might be important.”

It was a journal of some kind, filled with handwritten markings, presumably letters, that didn’t match any language Nate recognized. He flipped through a few pages, peering at it. On one page he found some English: the date two days from now, followed by the word “Vittori”, a line break, and then some more unidentifiable markings. He handed the book to Sophie, who perused it the same way he had.

“Any ideas?” Eliot asked.

“I don’t recognize the writing system,” Sophie said.

“Me either,” Nate confirmed. “Almost looks like Georgian letters, but these markings here, I don’t recognize them at all.”

Sophie squinted at the page with English on it, then looked up in alarm. “Vittori. Michael Vittori. San Lorenzo. He might be in trouble.”

“That’s what I thought,” Eliot said. “So I had Hardison monitor the president for a couple days, scan social media and all. Nothing suspicious.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Nate asked, pushing the book back towards Eliot across the table.

“I got a bad feeling,” Eliot said, pushing the book back.

Nate studied him and then the book. “Then get one of your buddies in the area to check up on him.”

“I can’t _do_ that, Nate,” Eliot almost growled. “I can’t get ahold of them ever since the Brightwing job.”

“Then what do you want to do?” Sophie asked, pulling the book back in front of her to study it again.

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m askin’,” Eliot said.

Nate let out a breath, fighting to keep a level head in the face of his biggest pet peeve. “Eliot, rule number one, don’t--”

“Don’t bring up a problem unless you have a solution,” Sophie and Eliot finished with him. Sophie rolled her eyes.

“I _know,_ Nate,” Eliot said with a scowl. “Know what? Fine, I’ll just keep watching the security feeds with Hardison,” he snapped, getting to his feet and reaching over to take the book.

“Wait!” Sophie cried, holding up a hand, and Eliot stopped. “I think I know what this is.”

Nate and Eliot waited patiently as she dug through her purse and came up with a compact mirror. She opened the compact and held it and the book facing each other, then peered back and forth between them. She rotated the book upside down and a slow smile spread across her face.

“It _is_ Georgian,” she confirmed. “Mirror image and upside down.”

Nate raised his eyebrows. “Well? What’s it say?”

Sophie put down the book and pushed it towards him, mirroring his expression. “I don’t know. I can’t read Georgian.”

Nate put his head in his hands. Every damn time.

 

* * *

 

_Sophie’s rule #1: Anyone who breaks Sophie’s other rules gets to buy Sophie at least one new pair of shoes._

Sophie stalked into Nate’s apartment, her heeled boots clicking on the wooden floors. Nate raised his eyebrows but didn’t look up from his book at her.

She went around behind him and leaned down so her face was next to his and waited until he acknowledged her.

“Yes?” he asked after a long moment.

“Do you recall,” she began, keeping her voice low and smooth, “setting a lunch date with me for today?”

Nate froze, and from her vantage point hovering over his shoulder she could hear his breath catch.

“Oh no,” he groaned, putting down his book.

“Hmm. Yes,” she purred. “And you know the rules.”

He sighed. “I do.”

She reached around him and dropped a catalog in his lap.

“Jimmy Choo’s in Bay Village is open until eight,” she said, and stood up.

“How many pairs are we talking?” Nate asked, sounding pained.

Sophie laughed on her way back out the door. “Oh, not many. I’ve only fallen in love with four pairs, but we’ll see how many catch my eye when we get there.” She paused before closing the door behind her. “I’ll be in the bar when you’re ready to go.”

She closed the door with a little smirk.

Nate had never figured out that the surest way to keep from having to take her shopping was to apologize, but then again, Nate never apologized to anyone. It wasn’t her fault she was capitalizing on that.

 

* * *

 

_Eliot’s rule #1: No. Guns._

“Over there,” Manfredi ordered, shoving Eliot roughly towards Nate across the hangar.

Eliot went with no quarrel and had the presence of mind to tremble and hunch his shoulders--his cover was an environmental protester, very much a pacifist, and it hadn’t yet been blown. Everything was going according to plan, Hardison and Parker were just around the corner outside posing as FBI with a handful of real FBI agents, Sophie was quietly charming information out of the mark in the next building while Nate and Eliot entertained her security, and even Nate had stuck completely to the plan so far.

Eliot joined Nate, noting with some annoyance that he had a concealed weapon at the small of his back. They were far enough from the small group of security guards and mercenaries hovering over a map that they wouldn’t be overheard.

“Don’t do it,” he muttered to Nate, holding up trembling hands just in case someone looked up. They were backed into a corner, with the group of hostiles in between them and the nearest exit, and there was nothing to hide behind to sneak around.

“Do what?” Nate asked. His cover was a history professor, and as he swayed lightly back and forth in a display of nerves, Eliot could see the faint outline of the gun tucked into his waistband as his tweed jacket brushed over it.

“The gun. Half of ‘em are packing more than one gun. All but three are armed,” Eliot murmured, running a practiced eye over the figures a dozen yards away. “I count four ex-Marine, two Mossad, one Navy SEAL, and two ex-CIA, plus our guy Manfredi. The three unarmed ones are all civilians, but with martial arts training. You pull that gun and you get us killed.”

“Hey!” one of the mercenaries hollered, having looked up and noticed Eliot’s mouth moving. “Shut the hell up!”

“We can give you what you want,” Nate called, putting on the nasal, nerdy sounding voice he was using for the professor. “We can get you the coordinates.”

“We have the coordinates,” the SEAL said to the mercenary who had spoken up, and he had probably not intended his voice to carry far enough that Eliot and Nate could hear them.

“We have the key,” Nate said, and half of the mercenaries around the map looked up in surprise.

“Doc, don’t,” Eliot hissed as a show. “Don’t help them.”

“No, Doc,” one of the Mossad agents spoke up. _“Do_ help us. Or your wife in there will be… disposed of.”

“We have the key,” Nate repeated, his voice shaking, and Eliot couldn’t tell if it was an act. “But not here.”

The Mossad agent stood and walked closer, her eyes narrowed, and even Eliot was a little intimidated by her. “Where is it?” she asked, her voice soft but insistent. Eliot knew that her next question wouldn’t be as nice, if she asked another question at all.

“Don’t,” Eliot warned again, and the agent’s calloused hand grabbed at his chin and held his head still.

“My office, just, please,” Nate said, “don’t hurt my wife or my assistant.”

The Mossad agent, clearly the leader of the group, studied Eliot’s face for signs of a trap, but Eliot was evidently a good enough grifter that he didn’t raise any suspicion, because she let go of him and shouted orders at the others.

“Pull a car around,” she said, pointing to one of the ex-CIA men. She pointed to two others. “You and you, come with us. I am driving.”

A few of the men started gathering up everything at the table quickly, and Eliot watched them. They were abandoning the hangar all at once. So they’d either take him with Nate or drag him out with the rest of them. If three of them were going to Nate’s “office,” that left ten going elsewhere. And with seven of them being armed, he didn't like his chances of breaking away cleanly or taking them all down. So he had to go with Nate if at all possible.

The Mossad agent pushed Eliot towards the door on the far side of the group, then Nate in the same direction. She walked behind them, shouting orders to the others. Eliot kept all his senses open, getting ready to defend himself and Nate should they decide to take them out then instead of getting the key.

Once they had walked past all the others and were now in between them and the door, Eliot saw Nate reach for his back out of the corner of his eye but couldn’t stop him. He pulled the gun and as he swung it back around towards the group the Mossad agent pulled her own gun. Eliot spun around, watching as the others drew their own weapons and trained them on the two of them.

“I swear to god,” Eliot hissed.

The Mossad agent’s eyes narrowed. “You are not a professor,” she said.

“You weren’t kidding,” Nate muttered to Eliot. “Ten guns. Oh boy.”

One of the armed mercenaries, an ex-Marine, started shouting at him to drop the weapon.

“Give me the gun,” Eliot said quietly.

“Not a good idea,” Nate whispered.

Eliot frowned at him. He saw the look on Nate’s face and his gaze slowly slid to the gun he held. He cursed under his breath.

“It’s a fake gun,” Nate said ruefully, low enough that the Mossad agent closest to them wouldn’t hear.

“Then why the hell did you bring it?” Eliot hissed.

Nate shrugged, and one of the armed mercenaries misinterpreted the beginning of the motion. A shot rang out and Eliot felt something slam into his calf.

He’d been _shot_. By someone with _horrible_ aim. He managed to stay on his feet, but only barely, and Nate dropped the gun to the ground as he ducked and grabbed at Eliot, shoving an arm around his back to heave him out the door as more shots rang out.

It didn’t hurt yet, and it wouldn’t as long as the adrenaline kept flowing, which meant they had maybe three minutes to get out before Eliot couldn’t walk. He was having a hard time of it even now; his left leg was numb from the knee down, but with Nate half-dragging him they were able to get out the door as the armed federal agents just outside reached it. They waded through the swarm of agents, helped along by Hardison and Parker, who were blissfully of few words until they made it to a car and Parker hotwired it.

“What the _fuck,_ Nate,” Eliot growled as he sat heavily in the backseat. “What is my _rule number fucking one?_ No guns!”

“Parker, drive,” Nate ordered instead of responding to Eliot. Hardison quickly climbed into the other side of the backseat as Nate closed the passenger side door.

“Sophie, get out,” Hardison shouted over the comms, then caught sight of the blood trickling down Eliot’s pant leg and his eyes widened.

Eliot studied the wound as best as he could from where he sat and through eyes that wanted to close. Through and through, and missed major arteries. He wouldn’t need to go to the hospital. He could stitch this up himself.

“A fake gun,” he hissed, and he almost heard Nate rolling his eyes.

“I got you out, didn’t I?”

“You got me _shot,”_ Eliot growled as he leaned back in the seat, fighting to keep his eyes open. His calf began to ache.

 

* * *

 

_Hardison’s rule #1: Do not under any circumstances touch my computer._

Hardison taped the makeshift sign over his monitor and shoved back from his desk, whistling as he went to the kitchen.

 _“Don’t touch--compiling,”_ the sign read.

None of his coworkers knew what ‘compiling’ meant in the context of computers, probably, but surely the ‘don’t touch’ part would be clear enough.

Halfway through making a sandwich--turkey, ham, salami, pickles, honey dijon, and banana peppers--he heard the faint but distinctive sound of paper crinkling and tape being pulled off a computer monitor. He turned around quickly, his mustard-covered knife brandished, to see Parker sitting cross-legged in his chair and studying the sign she held in her hands.

“Parker, don’t touch my computer,” he warned, holding up the knife menacingly, though he was across the room and she didn’t even look up.

“What does compiling mean?” she asked.

He sighed and put down the knife on the cutting board behind him. “Means it’s like…” he sighed again, trying to decide how best to describe it. “Compiling is like when a program is in one language and has to be turned into another. Like translating between real languages, but they’re programming languages.”

Parker looked up, frowning at him. “Why can’t I touch it, then?”

Hardison gestured vaguely with his hands in faint exasperation. “It’s… it’s just a bad idea, anything you do can slow it down or mess it up, so you just gotta… leave it alone. Can you leave it alone, please?”

Parker put the sign over the keyboard and held up her hands like he was a cop and she was surrendering.

“Thank you,” Hardison said gratefully, turning back to his sandwich.

When he was finished building the sandwich and cut it in half (diagonally, he wasn’t an _animal_ ) he turned to go back into the living room to put on some tv or something. He stopped short when he saw the paper sign was no longer on top of the keyboard, but next to it, and Parker was staring at the monitor blankly.

His stomach dropped and he crossed quickly to stand behind her. His knees almost gave out when all he saw was his bare desktop and no programs open in the taskbar.

“Did you touch something,” he asked weakly.

“Mmhmm,” Parker said, sounding a little bit guilty but mostly neutral--as guilty as she could sound when it was genuine and not for a grift.

“Why,” he asked.

“I thought you were exaggerating,” she explained. “I was going to play Sims.”

Hardison closed his eyes. “I don’t have Sims on this computer.”

“Oops,” she whispered, turning around to look at him, her teeth showing in a sort of apologetic grimace.

He sighed and put his sandwich on the desk next to the computer.

“Did I mess everything up?” Parker asked nervously.

He fluttered a hand at her, shooing her out of the chair and taking her place. She hovered over him as he clicked into his files and pulled up the program again. The data was corrupted, and he blew out a breath.

“Yep,” he said, feeling a little bad when she stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice sounded far away. He looked up at her and saw her worrying her lip between her teeth, looking like a scared little girl, and he remembered everything he knew about her childhood.

He squared his shoulders and took a breath before speaking. “It’s alright, Parker. I’m not--I’m not mad at you or anythin’. Just a lil inconvenienced, is all. It had just started compiling. I can get it started up again real quick.”

She nodded, her expression remaining unchanged, and he stood up. She shrank back a little, and he held out a hand gently.

“It’s alright, I promise,” he said, keeping his voice soft. She took his hand.

He smiled, and squeezed her hand gently before letting go and pointing to his other computer across the room. “That’s the one with Sims on it.”

She smiled and let a difficult breath out. “Thanks, Hardison.”

“Mmhmm,” he hummed as she flitted over to the other computer. He sat back down and frowned at his monitor and started trying to salvage the wreckage.

 

* * *

 

_Parker’s rule #1: Don’t lift my stuff._

Hardison had been working on his lifts. Under Parker’s careful tutelage he had gone from unable to lift a glowing object in a dark, empty room to being able to sometimes take a security badge without the mark noticing. Or Nate, as it was. Hardison wasn’t quite ready to move on to lifting important items during actual jobs. He still had fumbly fingers sometimes and tended to loudly exclaim over his successes, so he had a ways to go. But he was getting better!

It was just after one of their tutoring sessions, and Parker had shooed Hardison out of her warehouse. She had to get ready for dinner; Alice’s friend Peggy wanted to have dinner with Alice before she left for a month-long vacation in Japan, and it always took Parker a long time to decide on outfits for Alice, let alone get into character.

As she left an hour later she did a once-over of her warehouse, making sure everything was in its place and all of her security measures were functioning. They were, and she left feeling satisfied.

A couple hours later, when she returned, tired and very ready to stop being Alice, she unbolted her door, disabled the security system, and turned on the lights, and immediately became suspicious. Something was off. Something was _missing._

It only took her a few steps into the large, open room to figure out what was missing. Her bed in the very middle of the room was empty. Her pillows and blankets were all there, and all of her stuffed animals were there, except for one; Bunny was gone, ripped from his place of honor in the middle of the bed.

Parker’s eyes automatically darted around the warehouse, scanning for signs of an intruder. All the doors and other exits were secured with no indications of tampering, and there were no windows for the thief to escape through. She crouched to sweep her gaze under the furniture and saw nothing out of the ordinary. She briskly conducted an inventory of the places she kept all the valuables she’d stolen and kept with her, as well as her stashes of cash throughout the warehouse. Nothing else had been taken. Just Bunny.

Panic rose in her throat and what she wanted most was to hug Bunny and run his ears through her fingers to calm herself down, but she _couldn’t._ Who in the _hell_ would burgle _her,_ and why would they only take the _one_ thing she couldn’t live without?

Abruptly she remembered Hardison earlier that evening, furtively glancing around when he thought she wasn’t looking. She had thought he was just curious about the place; he’d only been here a couple of times before, and never for very long. Now, Parker’s panic quickly transformed into anger as she remembered Hardison sitting on her bed and plopping Bunny into his lap while she showed him lifting techniques on a mannequin.

She was out the door and getting back into her car again before she knew what she was doing, and her bag of equipment was in the passenger seat. She sped to Hardison’s apartment, just down the street from Nate’s, and swiftly picked his lock and disengaged his security system. She barged in and found Hardison sprawled out on his couch, dozing through an episode of some dumb sitcom.

She shook him roughly by the shoulders. “Where is he?” she demanded even before his eyes were open.

Hardison sat upright quickly in surprise, and he blinked rapidly. He scooted as far back as he could without his butt leaving the couch.

“Wha? Parker?” he asked. He cleared his throat. “What’chu talkin’ about?”

She glared at him. “Where is he, Hardison?” she asked again.

“Huh?” he asked, and she narrowed her eyes, unable to tell if he was just playing dumb or had really taken her Bunny.

“Bunny,” she demanded. “Where is he?”

Hardison shook his head and Parker pulled out her taser, brandishing it at him.

“Whoa!” Hardison yelped, leaping off of the couch and holding up one finger towards her as he took two huge steps back. “Hold on. Don’t--don’t play like that, Parker.”

“What makes you think I’m playing?” she asked.

“Alright, alright,” Hardison said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I took your bunny.”

Some relief flooded her, and she lowered the taser about an inch. “Where is he?” she repeated yet again. Hardison hesitated, and she raised the taser again. “I _will_ go looking for him, and I _will_ find him, and then I _will_ break all your computer screens,” she threatened, and Hardison blinked.

He pointed towards his bedroom, and Parker squinted at him. “I put it somewhere safe.”

Parker slowly lowered the taser and darted towards the bedroom, and there he was, sitting upright in the middle of Hardison’s messy bed.

She returned to the living room clutching Bunny to her chest, and glared at Hardison, who was sitting on the couch again.

He held up his hands apologetically. “Look, Parker, I’m sorry. But, hey, I did it!”

“Burglary isn’t the same thing as pickpocketing, Hardison,” Parker snapped as she collected her taser and headed for the door.

 _“I’m_ proud of me!” Hardison called as the door swung shut.

Parker made extra sure Bunny was buckled in on their way back home, and that evening she sewed a GPS tracker into his foot just in case Hardison tried again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sophie is...... really hard to write, y'all. i'm sorry, this is all i could come up with


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